


An Even Trade

by fanfictiongreenirises



Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Don't copy to another site, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Resurrection, Soul Selling, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28745259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: Dick makes a deal to save Jason.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 30
Kudos: 148
Collections: Bat Family 18+ Discord Server January Prompt Event





	An Even Trade

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 14 of the Batfamily 18+ Server's January Prompt Event - Forehead Kisses. (Pls ignore how thin the connection to the prompt is lmao.) Also,, FIRST FIC OF THE YEAR!!!! 
> 
> Heavily, _heavily_ inspired by Supernatural lmao. I don't know enough about Constantine and magic side of DC to say whether this is just canon divergence or an AU entirely, but in my head it diverges from canon around/just before A Lonely Place of Dying.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own DC or Supernatural

This fanfiction is hosted on **Archive of Our Own,** where you can read it for **free**. If you’re reading this on a different website, it was posted there without the author’s consent.

It was drizzling, and there were promises of a raging storm in the air. It crackled with possibility, threatening to send Dick’s already frazzled nerves hurtling over the edge. The gravel beneath his feet was only beginning to wetten, and it made a curious crunching sound as he walked over it, eyes on his destination.

There was nothing around for miles. Dick had chosen this road specifically for this reason, but at this time of night, there weren’t many people out and about on the roads around Wayne Manor anyway.

He could’ve done this earlier, he knew. And Dick’s reasons for doing this were selfish: they weren’t even about Jason, not entirely. That fact sat heavy in his chest, and he prayed that Jason would never find out. Dick didn't know if he'd known Jason well enough to decide whether he’d be hurt by the knowledge. He wondered whether he himself would've been, in the same circumstances. 

Tonight had been bad. _Really_ bad. Dick had been called to Gotham by Alfred in an effort to try and reel Bruce in from the ledge, but to no avail. Every life saved was overshadowed by the ones they’d gotten there too late to rescue, as though the shadows that’d always surrounded Bruce had become heavier than ever before.

It’d been almost a year since Jason had died, and Dick knew that Alfred was at the end of his rope. Neither of them knew how to fix this, how to get Bruce functioning somewhat normally once more.

Or at least, they didn’t know how to fix it without the use of external powers.

Dick took in a harsh breath and knelt down, right at the middle of the crossroads. The rain made it easier to dig a little hole in the gravel and dirt, big enough for him to fit in a box. It contained a variety of little tokens that, if Dick’s sources were correct, would make this work. He'd had to rely on digging up old books and looking at accounts online, not wanting to risk being stopped if he went to someone in the superhero community.

Dick rose to his feet, brushing the dirt from his fingers, and looked around. All the accounts of making a deal that he’d read about online stated that the demon didn’t take long to appear. But as Dick strained his eyes, all he could feel was despair building up inside him.

This was his last hope, the one thing Dick that had left in his arsenal. He didn’t know what he could do if this didn’t work. Bruce couldn’t go on the way he was, and he and Alfred couldn’t bear to watch the man kill himself bit by bit. And Jason... tiny, teenaged Jason, who hadn't deserved to die at such a young age, and at the hands of the Joker. Dick was setting things right, by doing this.

 _Please_ , he thought, breaths coming in harshly. He could hear them echoing in his ears, the rush of his own blood as it pounded. _Please_. His fingers clenched and unclenched, palms clammy with either rain or sweat; he didn't care to tell the difference. Water dripped into his eyes from his hair, and he blinked it away furiously.

“You lookin’ for me, sweetheart?”

Dick whirled around, heart jackhammering in his chest. He only felt relief for a single, glorious instant. It was then replaced by the horror, the fear, at the creature standing before him.

The demon always came looking like a human. From statements Dick had read online, people weren’t entirely sure whether they were possessing a human body, or if it was all a mind trick, an illusion, to make them feel more trusting.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t entirely flawless. Perhaps that was intentional. There was something about the demon’s movements that were _off_ , imperfect not to the eye but to the brain, in the intrinsic knowledge one human being had about how others looked and moved. Maybe it was the way the gestures were a little too smooth, how the demon’s legs didn’t quite seem to fold its knees correctly as it stepped forward. Or maybe it was how it walked on the broken glass that littered the ground with no feeling.

The demon had come to Dick in the form of a civilian he’d failed to save tonight. There’d been a fire, and a mother and her son were the last two they had to evacuate. Batman had been on the other end of the building; Dick had lost contact with him about five minutes into the rescue, but it hadn’t mattered. Dick's sanity depended on believing it wouldn't have mattered.

The crawlspace that they had been trapped under had been too small for more than one person to be in at one time. Dick had talked the kid out first, and his mother had been close behind. He’d shielded the child from the view of her being crushed by a pillar on fire, ran out with the boy clutched in his arms as tightly as he could.

It hadn’t mattered that it’d been Dick who’d messed up. This was Gotham; Bruce always took every failure that occurred in his city onto his own shoulders.

Dick had known something like this was going to be the case, but he should’ve braced himself better. The time between planting the box and the demon appearing had crumbled all his defences, that minute of despair as he’d wondered what he could possibly do if it never came.

“Like this body, don’t you?” The demon’s voice was silky smooth, nothing at all like the woman’s had been as she’d yelled to Nightwing to save her son.

“I want to make a deal,” Dick said, ignoring its words.

“Of course you do.” The demon circled around Dick, and he resisted the urge to turn to face her. He stood his ground, and could feel the hair on his arms rising; even if his eyes saw her as a human, his body knew that there was something unnatural, something not quite right. “And what will you give me in return?”

Dick blinked. All the accounts had spoken only of one payment: your own soul. “What will you take?” he asked. Even as he spoke the words, he knew it was no use. The demon was just toying with him, trying to give him false hope, maybe weasel something more out of him in return.

As long as it got him Jason back, as long as his payment didn’t affect anyone else, Dick was willing to pay the price.

The demon was now right in front of him. Dick tried not to hold his breath, but the way its eyes glinted as it smiled at Dick with a mouth that wasn’t its to wield showed that it knew he was unsettled by its presence.

“Name what you want, and I’ll arrange a price.”

Dick’s mouth was dry as he spoke. “I want my brother back. His name’s Jason. Jason Todd. He died about six months ago…” His voice trailed off as the demon waved its hand dismissively.

“Yes, yes, I know him.” Its eyes narrowed, and Dick couldn’t help but feel like there was something he was missing, some vital piece of information that might change everything. “I hadn’t expected _this_ ,” the demon said finally, after the longest of pauses.

“Why not?” Dick said with an incredulous huff. “Surely people come to you all the time trying to get their loved ones back.”

“Fate has different plans for this one,” the demon said. “And you have just changed everything by wishing him back. I love a little chaos.”

What could it possibly mean? Was Jason the one fate had different plans for, or was Dick? Had Jason’s life been cut unnaturally short when he’d died in Ethiopia – was that what the creature meant? At that moment, though, Dick didn’t care.

“You’ll bring him back?” he said. Dick knew he was sounding a little too eager, but there was only one type of customer that crossroads demons bartered with: the desperate.

The demon nodded. “Of course I will,” it said. “It’s what you ask for, isn’t it? You’ll find I’m a stickler for the contract, even when others…” it paused a little on the word, “aren’t.”

Dick didn’t care who ‘others’ was. He didn’t care what trouble he might be bringing upon himself by making this deal. All he knew was that it was the solution to everything that was going wrong in Gotham, everything that he'd worried about ever since Alfred had first contacted him. If he could fix Bruce, then he’d have ten years to live his own life. Vigilantes died young more often than not, anyway; as long as it happened in the middle of a fight, no one would bat an eye.

“What’s the price?” he asked, even though he knew.

“Your soul.” The demon looked at him. “But you knew that.”

Dick nodded once. He had, but hearing it from the demon’s mouth made it all the more _real_. It made sense, though: one life for another, an equal trade. He would give his life up for any stranger on the street – hell, he’d almost given his life for the body standing opposite him only a few short hours ago. For Jason, it was no question.

“And when’ll you come to collect?” His voice was quiet now.

This time he got an appraising look. “You’ve done your research,” the demon said. Dick wondered if that was a good thing or not. He wondered if he would’ve been less nervous if he hadn’t known about the consequences of this, of the price. But he’d been trained to go into every situation with as much knowledge as possible, and it was an impossible habit to break. “Sorry, sweetie, but you aren’t getting the full decade.”

Dick frowned. “Why not?”

The demon shrugged. “New rules?” it said. “For the sake of the soul economy? Doesn’t matter to you _why_. Just that it _is_. I can give you one day, or one year.”

A day, or a year. The answer was clear – Dick needed to make sure everything was okay with Jason and with Bruce and with the Titans and the circus before he could die, and that wasn’t possible in a day. But it was tempting, to give in to it now and not have to deal with a year of dreaded anticipation.

“You sure you can’t up it a little?” he asked weakly, and the demon shook its head.

“Take it or leave it kinda deal.”

Dick looked around himself, needing something grounding but finding his environment empty of anything he could cling to. There were no stars visible in the sky, and the moon was hidden behind the heavy rainclouds. He focused on trying to even out his breathing once more. This was what he’d _wanted;_ why was it so frightening to say the words? A year was plenty of time. It would be enough. Dick would make it enough.

“A year,” he said, turning back. “But… when you come to take my soul…”

“Kill you, really,” the demon said mildly.

“Can you make it look like an accident? In the middle of a fight, maybe?”

The demon pulled a piece of paper out of thin air, and handed it to Dick. Dick felt a jolt of absolute coldness rushing through his arm when their fingers brushed, and the demon grinned smugly. On it was written a date and time. Dick glanced at his watch; it was exactly a year from today.

“We’ll come for you wherever you are at that exact moment,” it said. “So make sure you’re where you want to die.”

Dick closed his fingers around the piece of paper, but it didn’t matter. The numbers were already imprinted into his head, a ticking time bomb. Another list was forming, just as rapidly; things he needed to fix, people he wanted to leave happy, a bucket list of sorts. A year to make things okay, to make his life _worth_ something.

“So, do we have a deal?” the demon asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Dick nodded. “We have a deal.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, the demon yanked him forward and pressed its cold, dead lips against his. It was more a mashing of two body parts than it was a kiss, but Dick recoiled all the same. He resisted the urge to wipe his mouth with a hand.

“Now,” the demon said, “you’d better get to your brother’s body. Would be a damn shame if you buried him. I’ll give you…” it cocked its head, “four minutes.”

And then it was gone, and Dick was scrambling to his car.

* * *

Dick had been buried alive before, and it’d been one of the most terrifying things he’d ever experienced. Walls all around you, the knowledge that you were beneath the earth with no way out, and oxygen rapidly running out… Dick wouldn’t wish it upon his worst enemy.

He was glad he’d decided on using the first crossroads he found, instead of something farther away. The hill where Jason was buried was ten minutes away, but Dick would make it there in four. He had to.

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see more than a metre ahead of himself because of the rain, no matter how much the wipers worked to brush it off. He knew these roads like the back of his hand, had spent years driving up and down them, and he could see just enough to gauge distance. All Dick could think about was Jason, cold, frightened, just back from a traumatising death Jason, waking up in his coffin.

The tyres of Dick’s car got stuck in the mud as he tried to drive as close as he could to Jason’s grave. It didn’t matter; he got out and _ran_ , not even bothering to close the door. He only paused to grab the shovel that he’d placed in there, just in case.

He’d considered digging up Jason’s body beforehand, bringing it with him to the crossroads. But that thought had been repulsive, disrespectful in every way. What if the demon had refused him? Or if Bruce or Alfred had come by to visit the grave, and found it desecrated?

But now he risked Jason waking up while he was still buried.

Dick _dug_ , faster than he’d ever before. The mud helped – this was the first time it’d rained in weeks, and he’d been distantly worrying about how long it might’ve taken to get through to the coffin.

There was pounding coming from the coffin when Dick hit it, and he knew that Jason was awake. Relief and trepidation warred within him as he shouted, “Jay, I’m here! I’m getting you out!”

The frantic scraping stopped, but if Jason responded with something, Dick couldn’t make it out over the roar of rain and thunder. His muscles burned as he dug, working as fast as he humanly could.

Next time, he thought wildly, he’d ask for the person to be pulled out of their grave and plopped directly next to him. He wondered just how many people he could’ve brought back with his one measly soul. Could he have asked for the boy’s mother, as well? Would that have been allowed?

There was enough of the coffin uncovered that Dick could probably open the top of the coffin. He knelt down, lifting it and pulling up as hard as he could. He’d broken the latches holding it in place.

Dick could’ve sobbed at the sight of Jason in there, hair still combed perfectly and wearing a black suit. His knuckles were red, fingertips bloody, and his eyes were scared, but he was _alive._

“Jay,” he said, and he was grateful to the rain for masking any water that ran down his face. “Jay.”

Jason scrambled out of the coffin as fast as he could, clambering out of the hole frantically. Dick grabbed one of his arms and pulled him out, revelling in the fact that Jason was _warm_ beneath the layers of clothing. The moment he was out of the hole, Dick had his arms wrapped around his brother, and only remembering at the last minute to not clutch so tightly.

Jason was shaking slightly in his arms. Dick could feel his fingers gripping Dick’s hoodie. “What happened?” he said in a tremulous voice.

“Uh,” Dick said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

It took a moment, but then Jason went completely still in Dick’s arms. “My m—Sheila,” he said. “She… she was working with the Joker. He blew us up.”

Dick would have to save his surprise for later, because Jason was now staring up at him, waiting for an explanation. He cleared his throat, trying for a reassuring look and ending with what was probably the wateriest of smiles.

“You… you died,” he said, and Jason frowned, opening his mouth to protest. “Jay, you _died_.”

“But…” The words hadn’t come to Jason as a surprise, and the knowledge that he’d probably been bracing himself for his death in his last moments were a bludger to Dick’s chest.

“I…” He needed this part to go flawlessly. Dick pulled out an empty vial from his pocket. There was a single little drop of a bright green fluid in there, just enough to confirm Dick's claim. He'd rinse out the food coloured water before Bruce got his hands on it. “I read that the Lazarus Pit can have healing properties. Wasn’t sure if it’d work, so I didn’t tell Bruce and Alfred. Didn’t want to get their hopes up. And then it was raining, too, so I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t just wasted it all for nothing. But it _worked_.”

He cradled Jason’s face with both his hands. The two of them were absolutely coated in mud; it didn’t matter that Dick was just adding to the mess. He looked into Jason’s eyes, eyes he’d almost forgotten the colour of, never having paid too much attention to them before, and willed him to believe Dick. It would be so much easier this way.

Jason nodded a little and leaned forward, burying his face into Dick’s shoulder. “Am I like Frankenstein’s monster now?” he asked, voice muffled.

Dick stood up, carrying Jason with him. He was so small in Dick’s arms, despite only being a few years younger than him. Were they farther in age now that Jason had been dead for a year? He’d been in the middle of a growth spurt when Dick had last seen him, legs and arms strangely disproportionate. Jason had grumbled to Dick about it, and Dick had only laughed and showed him stretches to help with the growing pains.

“You’re no monster,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to Jason’s muddy forehead. “Even if there’s probably enough lightning tonight to cook one up.”

No, the only monster here was the one that had brought Jason back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and a belated Happy New Year to everyone!!! I hope 2021 treats you well ^~^
> 
> This is also [crossposted to Tumblr](https://fanfictiongreenirises.tumblr.com/post/640258645084504064/an-even-trade-summary-dick-makes-a-deal-to-save)


End file.
